Contents

Accession and synchrony

Jehoahaz was the son of Jehu, but the Bible does not state the year of his birth. He did not serve as viceroy in his father's reign for any appreciable length of time.

He came to his throne in the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash of the Southern Kingdom and died in the same year as did Joash.[3] He did, however, have a son and successor, also named Joash, to whom he granted the executive viceroyship in the last (or the next before last) year of his reign.

Military Disaster

Jehoahaz never once made any effort to turn his kingdom away from the false religion that Jeroboam I had set up--or from the worship of Asherah, in that the people of Samaria still kept an Asherah pole in a high place in or near that city.[4]

The result was the most severe military disaster that God had yet visited upon the Northern Kingdom.[5] The Syrians, under the command of King Hazael and his son (and probably viceroy) Benhadad II, conducted a series of devastating raids on that kingdom.</ref>II_Kings 13:3 In those raids they captured many Israelite cities, and left Jehoahaz with a tiny remnant of an army consisting of 50 cavalrymen, 10 chariots, and 10,000 infantrymen.[6]

In desperation, Jehoahaz actually prayed to God, and God did send help. The Bible says only that God sent "a savior" and does not specify what sort of savior that was.[7][5]

Death and Succession

Jehoahaz made his son viceroy in the last or next-to-last year of his reign. He died quietly, and his son immediately consulted the prophet Elisha for advice on how to cope with the Syrians.